Tweet Seat: Outdoor Bench Links Digital + Physical Worlds

By Delana

Our digital and physical lives are often so far separated that we feel as though we live in two different worlds at once. Designer Chris McNicholl’s TweetingSeat aims to forge a connection through a novel interaction method.

The bench sits in a public park, inviting visitors to sit down and enjoy the scenery for a few minutes. It looks much like a regular park bench aside from its blue slat adorned with the blue Twitter bird. Whenever someone sits down, two cameras are activated: one situated in a nearby tree pointed at the bench, and another on the bench looking out at the surrounding area.

Pictures from the cameras are automatically sent to the TweetingSeat’s Twitter feed. The dual snapshots create a strong visual connection between the physical world in which the bench and sitters exist, and the digital world into which the images are sent.